1. Field of the Invention
The following invention relates to disinfectant compounds that act as biocides to an array of microorganisms. The biocides are comprised of cyclic N-halamines that are biocidal when they come in contact with halogen-sensitive organisms for a specific contact time. This is achieved by coating the N-halamine on a substrate; such as, but not limited to: glass, metal, wood, plastic, concrete, and fabric.
2. Background Art
Current surface contact biocides for the use of producing a sterile environment such as for medical tables, surgical equipment, fabric materials, gloves, catheter tubing, piping, industrial and commercial surfaces, swimming pools, floors, can and bottle liners, food production equipment and liners, and various medical and dental applications do not exist or are severely limited in their biocidal abilities. Most commonly used water-soluble disinfectants which contain free halogen have severely limited lifetimes, produce adverse reactions to their environment, and produce toxic by-products. Disinfectants which do not contain free halogen, such as quaternary ammonium and phenolic compounds, are only effective towards specific organisms, are water soluble, and can cause skin and eye irritation. Commercially employed hydantoins, cyanurates, oxazolidinones (Kaminski et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,000,293 and 3,931,213), imidazolidinones (Worley et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,681,948; 4,767,542; 5,057,612; 5,126,057), and polymeric N-halamines (Worley et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,490,983 and 5,670,646) are much more stable than free halogen, ozone, and chlorine dioxide, and are more versatile than phenolic and quaternary ammonium compounds.
Currently only a few disinfectant surfaces have been prepared, most of which focus on quaternary ammonium compounds (quats) anchored on polymer backbones (Hazziza-Laskar et al., J Appl. Polym. Sci., 50:651 (1993); Nurdin et al., J Appl. Polym. Sci., 50:663 (1993); Nurdin et al., J Appl. Polym. Sci., 50:671 (1993); Hazziza-Laskar et al., J Appl. Polym. Sci., 58:77 (1995)) which are then cast as films. Although these films are biocidal, their limitations are that they need long contact times to kill the organisms, the surface cannot be reactivated once the biocidal activity is lost, the films are relatively expensive to make, and the films are partially water soluble. Other types of surface active disinfectants are polymeric phosphonium materials (Kanazawa et al., J Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem., 31:1467 (1993); J Appl. Polym. Sci., 52:641 (1994)), modified polyesters, polyethers and benzimidiazoles (Oh et al., J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 52:583 (1994); J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 54:859 (1994); Cho et al., J. Macromol. Sci., Pure Appl. Chem., A32:479 (1995)) which are resistant to several types of microorganisms, but the biocidal moiety cannot be regenerated once exhausted, the films are costly to make, and they can be water soluble.
Therefore, there is a need for a surface active biocide that is inexpensive to manufacture, can regenerate its biocidal activity, is water insoluble when necessary, can kill a broad spectrum of microorganisms, does not affect its environment unfavorably, and requires relatively short contact times to inactivate microorganisms when necessary. There is also a need for the contact biocide to be applied to numerous substrates such as glass, wood, metal, fibrous materials, and concrete to maximize the applications for its use.